Re: Proposed response to Golbeck regarding imports issue

Dan Connolly wrote:

> >
> > Are you suggesting that the _presence_ of an XML Namespace declaration
in an
> > RDF/XML document indicates that the 'namespace' ought be imported.
>
> More precisely: that the use of the term http://...foo#bar
> implies assent to the contents of http://...foo.

Uh huh. I'd be very happy to discuss the implied relationship between that
identified by an URIreference to that identified by the URI itself.

Of course it brings up the following questions:

Does use of the term http://...foo#
imply assent to the contents of http://...foo
:-))))

But let's get this off the topic of namespaces at all because we could ask
ought?:
http://...foo/bar
imply http://...foo/
etc.?
and similarly ought
http://...foo#barbaz
imply http://...foo#bar
(perhaps?)

>
> Namespace declarations are an incidental syntactic detail.
>
> >  If, so
> > this would suggest that an XML Namespace is to be _identified_ with an
OWL
> > Ontology -- if that is what we are saying, then let's say that clearly.
>
> That's pretty much what I'm saying. I accept that the WG doesn't
> endorse this view.
>
> I don't accept that the WG has decided to specify that it doesn't work.

I understand, and think that we might have made a case that this did work --
indeed I was disappointed that RDF CoreWG itself had not said so ... i.e.
the "meaning" of http://...foo#bar is determined by obtaining the document
at http://...foo, and looking for the rdf:ID="bar" inside ... (or something
*like* that for the most literal amongst us ... actually I'd really say it
differently - something that involves RDDL indirection -- but no matter).

>
>
> > Since the XML namespace declarations in the RDF/XML source don't end up
in
> > an N-Triples representation of the RDF graph, I think we *should* say
> > affirmitively that XML namespace declarations do not imply OWL
importation
> > of the namespace document (if any exists) -- otherwise we'd certainly
not
> > need owl:imports eh?
>
> Indeed, I don't believe we need owl:imports. I objected to the WG
> decision, you may recall.
>
>
http://www.w3.org/2001/sw/WebOnt/webont-issues.html#I5.6-daml:imports-as-mag
ic-syntax

I understand. At the time, my understanding was that you simply wanted to
*strike* owl:imports, rather than propose an alternate mechanism -- I'd have
supported the alternate -syntactic- device FWIW.
...
>
> Yes, they're doing more than the spec requires.
> They're not doing anything that the spec should prohibit.
>

Sure, let's be crystal clear about what the spec requires.

Jonathan

Received on Monday, 16 June 2003 15:28:13 UTC